Ep. 36 Why build muscle as a teen when losing weight

Have you ever wondered why keeping muscle mass is key to a teen's healthy weight loss journey? I'm here to share with you essential insights on how a balanced approach to exercise can safeguard your child's muscle mass as they work to lose those extra pounds. This journey isn't just about outward appearances – it's deeply connected to maintaining hormonal balance and optimal cardiovascular health, essential pillars for lifelong health.

In this episode, we dive deep into the significance of muscle in regulating insulin sensitivity and offer practical tips that teens can apply to stay healthy. 

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

Here's what makes this different:
✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame.
✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits
✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight
✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders

Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens
podcast.
If you are a mom and want tohelp your child who is
struggling to lose weight, youare in the right place.
If you are looking for healthylifestyle tips, dr Gorgary is
here to help you understand thescience around safe weight loss
in teens and children, becausewhat works for adult weight loss
is not always the best forchildren.

(00:29):
This podcast is for educationalpurposes only.
Dr Gorgary does not providemedical, psychological or
nutrition therapy advice.
You should not use thisinformation to diagnose or treat
any health problems withoutconsulting your own medical
practitioner and now your host,dr Jenny Gorgary.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hello, hello, welcome to another episode of the
Lifestyle and Weight Loss forTeens podcast.
This is your host, dr JennyGorgary, and today I will be
talking about exercise and howthat can prevent losing muscle
in teenagers that they're tryingto get to a healthy weight by

(01:14):
doing following both a dietaryplan and some type of physical
activity.
It is recommended thatteenagers that want to get into
a healthy weight do at least onehour of physical activity every
day.
Now I understand that this isnot always feasible and that's
totally fine.

(01:35):
Just do every day a littlebetter than what you did
yesterday.
That's why I keep saying againand again but what I want to
focus the discussion today.
The topic today is around weightreduction and how that can
affect preservation on musclemass.

(01:56):
The problem with losing weightcan be that if it is not done
with exercise at the same timeand it's not done with having
enough protein intake also atthe same time, it can make you
lose not only fat but also losemuscle.

(02:20):
Now why we don't want to losemuscle.
What's the problem?
The muscle, having more musclemass than having more fat for
the same amount of body weightcan help you significantly with
regulating the hormones that areimportant for not only weight

(02:43):
loss, but also maintaininghealthy weight and maintaining
good cardiovascular health.
I'm talking about insulinresistance.
So I'll try to explain this insimple terms.
Let's say you have 20% ofmuscle in your body and somebody

(03:08):
else has 30% muscle in theirbody.
They're both same teenagers, 15years of age.
They go and have a piece ofcake.
The person who has 30% bodymass is going to have lower

(03:28):
spike of insulin compared to theperson who has 20% muscle mass.
If they are similar.
For all the other aspects, ofcourse, this is just an
imaginary scenario, but what I'mtrying to say is that the
insulin sensitivity is betterwhen you have more muscle mass

(03:55):
compared to if you have lessmuscle mass.
And why is that important?
Because when you eat somethingthat has carbohydrates, that has
sugar, it is absorbed by themuscles.
There are receptors in themuscles that get the sugar

(04:16):
inside the muscles.
So it is important to have goodmuscle mass because that can
improve your insulin sensitivity.
Now you can ask okay, how muchis my muscle mass?
And this is my muscle mass, andwhat do I do if I increase it?
The actual number I can giveyou a number.

(04:38):
The actual number is variable.
It depends on your height, yourweight, your age.
But what is important is tomaintain a good muscle mass and
to do what you can to improveyour insulin sensitivity, to
improve your cardiovascularhealth, and one good way to do

(05:02):
that is through physicalactivity.
So that is one reason why theAmerican Academy of Pediatrics
recommends to have at least onehour of physical activity for
every child.
I mean, it's true for adults,but I'm focusing on children and
teenagers.
Now.
So the problem with weight lossif you are following a diet and

(05:28):
an exercise plan and you wannalose weight, then when you're
losing weight, that can belosing weight from fat and also
losing weight from muscle, andideally we don't want to lose as
much muscle mass.
We prefer to lose more fat massthan muscle mass.

(05:52):
It's inevitable to some extentto perhaps lose some muscle too
if you're having a significantweight loss, but the important
thing is to minimize the effectof muscle mass to the extent
that it is possible and to tryto have more preservation of the

(06:16):
muscle mass to the extent thatthis is possible.
So there was this great studythat was done a few years ago.
The title of the manuscript isa Weight Reduction Program
Preserves Fat Free Mass but NotMetabolic Rate in Obesity

(06:37):
Adolescents.
It was published in the Journalof Obesity Research in February
2004 by Stephan Lazar and hisgroup.
Now what these researchers didis they had 26 teenagers between
the ages of 12 to 16 years ofage and they followed them over

(07:01):
a nine month weight reductionprogram.
Now their average BMI wasaround 33.9.
If you don't know what BMI is,you can go and listen to episode
one when I explain a little bitmore.
But basically, bmi is ameasurement that researchers use

(07:22):
to evaluate what is thepercentage of abnormal weight
and how much weight teenagersneed to lose to being a healthy
BMI.
That's what we use Now.
Bmi is thought a perfect tool.
It doesn't give you anyinformation about body

(07:42):
composition.
It doesn't tell you, forexample, how much of that weight
is due to body fat and how muchof that is due to muscle mass.
So there is another measurementthat researchers can do and
there is a machine it's calledDEXA scan.
It's the same machine that isused to check for osteoporosis.

(08:04):
So they had this scan and theyasked all these teenagers to get
into that at the beginning andat the end of the program, where
they had them measured how muchwas their muscle mass in the
beginning and how much was theirfat mass in the beginning and
what was at the end of theprogram.
Now, they also asked them tofollow, say, an activity program

(08:27):
, and the activity programincluded two sessions of 40
minutes each.
They were done with a physicaltrainer and they were also
testing them and measuring theirheart rate to see how their
heart, their basal heart rateand their maximum heart rate was

(08:49):
.
So when they tried to put theminto the exercise, the intensity
of the program was set at 60%of the initial maximum
oxygen-aptic test.
So it was an intense programand in addition to that they
also had two hours of physicalactivity at school and they had

(09:12):
two hours per week of aerobicactivities at their institution,
and then they were encouragedto also participate in physical
activity with their parentsduring the weekend.
They also gave them specificdietary recommendations and they
also give them lectures abouthow to eat healthy, and they

(09:35):
also taught them how to cook andmake simple meals.
So this was a nine-monthprogram and at the end of the
program what they found was thatthere was a significant
improvement in the BM.
The teenagers lost an average of16.9 kilograms, and when they

(09:58):
looked at the percent body fatversus the percent muscle loss,
they found that the boys did notlose significant muscle mass.
The girls did lose some musclemass.
So there was some difference inhow the boys and the girls
responded to this program and tothis intense activity in order

(10:24):
to preserve the muscle mass.
And the way the researchersexplained it, which also makes
sense, is that the boys werestill growing and they had a
significant growth spurtcompared to the girls, who did
not grow as much, because theboys tend to grow later in their
puberty compared to girls andpotentially because of that they

(10:49):
had less of an effect on theirmuscle loss.
However, as I mentioned in thebeginning, it is expected that
when you have weight loss youare going to lose some muscle
mass, you are going to lose somefat mass, but the point is, is

(11:09):
the expected muscle mass less,muscle mass loss, less than the
actual muscle mass loss?
And they did have some topredict the expected loss in the
muscle and even in girls thatthey did lose muscle mass when
they had this significant weightloss.

(11:31):
The percent of muscle mass losswas less than what they would
have lost if they hadn'tparticipated in the exercise.
So my take-home message fortoday and this is just one of
the manuscripts that supportthese notions is what we know

(11:55):
that exercise improves musclemass and exercise can prevent
having significant muscle mass.
It can prevent and preserveyour muscle mass while you're
losing weight, and we want youto have more muscle mass, as

(12:17):
more muscle mass as possible,because that can help regulate
better your insulin sensitivityand it can help you maintain a
healthier cardiovascular health.
So, again, you don't need tostart with one hour of exercise
if you're not doing anything atthis point.

(12:39):
But let's say, if you'reexercising three times per week,
I encourage you to go andexercise four times.
If you're doing 15 minutes, youcan go and do 20 minutes, and
having someone who is a personaltrainer can help you on that
journey.
Don't be scared to do musclestrength.

(13:00):
I used to think that, oh, Ineed to lift weights, for
example, and I'm going to bevery bulky and muscular if I do
exercise.
No, I'm not talking about thistype of exercise.
You don't need to lift 50pounds to get the benefits of

(13:20):
building muscle.
You can just start with bodyweight exercises.
You can start with simpletraining.
You can start things that youcan easily do at your home, even
if they're for five or 10minutes, you can do them at your
school.
You can talk with yourcounselor.
You can talk with other peopleat the gym or at sport events.

(13:43):
You can just also do it byplaying basketball.
You can do it with warmingactivities even before you
actually go and participate inthe sport.
So talk to your trainer, talkto someone who is an exercise
physiologist.
Go and talk to your provider ifthey have someone who they work
with.

(14:03):
But please do your best toincorporate some kind of
physical activity in your weightloss journey, because that can
help you maintain and preservethe muscle mass to the extent
that is possible.
That's all I had for today.
I hope you enjoy it.

(14:24):
Please feel free to reach outto me info at lifestyle14scom If
there are any topics you wouldlike me to talk about, and if
you like this episode, pleasefeel free to share it with
anybody you think may benefitfrom hearing this message.
Take care, bye.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, I
invite you to come check out theLifts program.
It's Dr Gorgary's 12-weekcoaching program for teens and
their moms, where we take allthis information, we apply it to
your daily life and we worktogether so your teenager learns
how to create a healthylifestyle so they can feel
happier, more confident, lessstressed and love their body

(15:06):
again.
Visit the website atlifestyle14scom and click on the
Work With Me and Free resourcesto learn more about this
program and get free help tostart this journey right away.
Thanks for tuning in and we'llcatch you in the next episode of
Lifestyle and Weight Loss forteens.